What to do:
Fill the bin with epsom salt
Add a few drops of orange food coloring (C wanted hers to be light orange so if you want it darker just add more)
Mix until all of the epsom salt is orange
Throw in the plastic toys and mix up so your munchkin can dig through the salt and find them

It’s game time again, so I decided to share this recipe for some yummy chocolate covered strawberries that are decorated in football glory 🙂

Here’s what you need:
Strawberries(bigger ones are easier to work with)
A bag of milk chocolate chips
White icing
Wax paper

Here’s what to do:
pour your chocolate chips into a microwave safe bowl
microwave at 30 second intervals stirring after each 30 seconds, until there are no more lumps
Dip your strawberries into the chocolate and set on waxed paper
Use a ziploc bag(cut a small piece of one corner) or icing bag(with a number 2, 3, or 5 tip)
Fill the bag 1/2 way with the icing
Squeeze a line up the strawberry and then smaller lines across

Ok so a lot of people told me on my last post about Honesty and Blogging that I should just throw caution to the wind and write my feelings, so here is the start of that.

Lately I have been feeling a little overwhelmed, and life has been pretty hectic, I have started some new ventures, the munchkins are back in school, and we are all trying to adjust to life with Daddy back.

A lot of people look forward to the return of their loved one from deployment and I am not unlike those people, I counted hours until the day I would see him again, I even decided to move back because I was sick of being away from him, A lot of people will also talk about how great it is to have them home, and how much better life is with them home and in some ways they are right, of course life is “better” I mean you no longer have to sleep alone, you no longer have to worry about their safety, you no longer are a single parent, things of that nature, and of course it is nice to have them home, after all you love them, but what people don’t talk about a lot is the adjustment. You see it’s not so simple when they come home because they are used to being without their family, they are used to being in a war zone, they are used to only having to think about themselves. You are used to not having them there, you are used to your routine, you are used to doing things your way and by yourself. So when you come back together it is a little like first moving in with someone, you have to learn to live with each other again, and it is not always easy. While they are away you forget about the things that drove you completely up the wall, and while they are gone they have usually missed you so much that they are convinced they won’t do those things anymore. As an example my husband happens to be an xbox, tablet, computer addict, It seems like no matter what when he is not at work he has a controller or electronic in his hand, before he left for deployment I told him he would miss us and not his xbox, because he much of the time spent very little time with us. and while he was deployed he told me how right I was and how much he had been thinking about it, and how he was going to change when he got home, and he did for about a week, then things went right back to the way they were before. He would come home from work and go straight to the game, and usually will stay on it for most of the night, if we were having a conversation he would have his tablet in his hand doing something else. and I was frustrated, I am frustrated, For one I used to be a gamer too, I loved to play, but once we had children and responsibilities I stopped playing and I feel like I am the only one who had to sacrifice, and it frustrates me, besides that I get upset that I left my family in New York, made a 5 day drive home, and put a lot of work into being able to be here only to watch him play his electronics, I feel like I could have been lonely(maybe even less lonely) had I stayed in New York. Needless to say this has been causing some tension and he keeps trying to work on it, but I have lost faith in that because he has been saying that for years. I want to feel like I come before the electronics and I don’t. With that said I do not think that he should never play, I just wish he could control the amount of time he does. Another adjustment takes place with the munchkins, they are used to only listening to me, they are used to always coming to me, and he is used to not having to deal with children. This can be tricky because it’s almost as if he doesn’t always know how to handle them, and he gets upset too easily, It’s also as if they don’t always know how to handle him, mainly because they do not really know what his expectations are because him and I have different parenting techniques( It may be a lot easier if we could get on the same page, but that has always been a hard part) this gets easier as the days go by, and eventually they will all be used to each other again, but for awhile it causes some frustration. You also have to deal with the fact that your loved one probably seen some messed up stuff during deployment and it changes them a little, you never know how it will change them and you usually learn it a little at a time. Not all of the changes are negative, but they are changes and some of them can be negative. My husband tends to get upset and agitated so much quicker these days, and I usually have to find ways to adjust so that I do not end up aggravated and upset as well. He also views things a little differently, some of them in a better way and some in a negative way, but rather the change is good, bad, or indifferent it is still change and you still have to learn, just like in the beginning of a relationship at about the time it has reached the comfortable time period and the very real part of your partner starts to come out and you learn new things about them a little at a time. Another adjustment is you yourself, because let’s face it chances are you have changed too, and just like you are learning about them again, they are learning the new things about you.

Yes I am thrilled he is home, Yes it is also difficult, there I said it!

I don’t usually write blogs like this, mostly because I do not want my husband to be upset about it, and I also don’t want people to view my husband as a bad person, because over all he is not, but I would like to be able to write them, because far too many people do not write or talk about it because they are afraid that they will look like bad people if they say anything negative about living with their partner again, and I want other people to know they are not alone, and that adjusting to life after deployment can be hard even if you are extremely happy your loved one is home.

We did the Ghost Mason Jar Craft I posted previously last year, so this year my munchkins wanted to paint mason jars and make lanterns again and we decided to do Jack O Lanterns this time. Still cute, a little less see through, but the munchkins love seeing them outside and in the window.

What you need:
Mason Jar
Orange paint (we used acrylic, but should have probably used glass I think it would have looked better)
Black permanent marker, or black paint
flame-less candles

What to do:
Paint the outside of your jar orange (use only 1 coat if you happen to use acrylic paint or it won’t be very see through)
Let dry
Once it is dry use your marker or paint to put a jack o lantern face on it
Drop in a flame-less candle

Tuesday was quite a day for me, I mean seriously, it was so crazy that I am just now catching up and able to write about it. Since people so kindly love to laugh at my misery, and I am not against laughing at myself I thought I would share 🙂

A little back story because you will need it
#1 I have a hard time sleeping at night, It’s awful, it’s not like I don’t want to sleep I just can’t sleep, I can be exhausted all day, put the munchkins to bed, lay down and my mind won’t shut off and I am up all night
#2 Behind Mayonnaise or maybe before it, it’s a close call my biggest fear is cockroaches, I am obsessive about it, they freak me out just looking the way they look and knowing they can completely infest your home freaks me out even more…yea okay my 1st biggest fear is cockroaches
#3 When we were living in houses I hire Orkin, especially since those big American cockroaches that everyone calls water bugs, except they are not water bugs they are Giant roaches are common here in El paso, I guess the good thing is they don’t really infest your home they just like to stop by and visit every once in awhile like spiders, the bad news is they are GROSS, seriously I had never seen one before I moved here and the first time I did, I was peeing and it was like 3 in the morning and I ended up in my bathtub with my pants around my ankles screaming bloody murder for my husband, who came in killed it and called it a water bug….smart man except google wasn’t his friend, Also last Friday they came to spray my apartment for bugs(not Orkin, the company the apartments hire, but apparently unlike Orkin I was suppose to remove everything from my cupboards and I hadn’t so they didn’t spray, told me to tell the office when I wanted them to come)
#4 There is a facebook trade sight here that I like to use a lot, it’s perfect because you can get rid of the things you don’t need and exchange it for the things you do, and I spend a fair amount of time meeting people for trades
#5 I am on a fair amount of medication at night because of my back so I have a very hard time waking up in the mornings

I think I have you pretty caught up at this time, so on with my play by play of the day

Monday night I couldn’t sleep at all, I was tossing and turning for hours, finally at about 4am I asked my husband to wake me up before he left for work, because I knew I wouldn’t end up waking up with the munchkins for school, and the schools here hire attendance nazis, seriously late 4 times in a year and they call the courts on you…

7:45 am(the exact time my oldest should be getting to his first class) The husband comes home during his PT break and realizes we are all still asleep, so I wake up to him yelling for them to get up, we are late
7:47 am Panic attack because HELLO we are late and the attendance Nazis are going to be on my ass
7:55 am Remember that C had been complaining the night before that it burned when she peed, and A had been coughing up a lot of mucus
8:00 am Hatch brilliant plan to bring both munchkins to the doctor…2 birds one stone right?
8:10 am fix the munchkins some cereal, go to set C’s down and see roach crawl across the wall
Toss C behind me, push table to the side, scream like I am gonna die and wait for husband to kill the little fucker.
8:15 am CRY…Yes a lot of crying for fear of my house ending up infested with roaches, all because they didn’t spray and of course probably one of my neighbors had them nasty things and now they got sprayed and are seeking sanctuary at my not sprayed house
Somewhere between sobs I asked the husband to call the rental office, and apparently they don’t open until 10 am…cue the tears
8:30 am Bring the munchkins to the doctor
10:00 am finally actually see the doctor, she was red and got cream, he has allergies and got meds and they both got notes for being late to school
10:30 am finally leave doctors, drop C off at school first then A
10:35 am Call rental office, they inform me that pest control can not come until Friday…FRIDAY? OH HELL NO I ain’t livin with no roaches for a week we all know how fast they procreate…nope nope nope
10:37 am text the husband about the pest control
10:45 am Go to Kmart check bug sprays and realize if I use any of them I will probably murder my cat, decide against cat murder
11:00 am go get gas and run into the gas station, come out and realize I missed a call, drive home
11:10 am Return the phone call and find out it was C’s school nurse, apparently shortly after dropping her off she spilled her entire lunch tray down the front of herself, Do you want to guess what was for lunch? If you guessed spaghetti you would be correct
11:30 am head over to the school to bring C new clothes, because heaven forbid they keep some of those extra clothes around the nurses office
12:00 am head home Clean every crack and crevice in my house with bleach(this took awhile so just pretend in the next few time slots I wrote clean every crack and crevice with bleach along with whatever else I did)
(Also spend the next few hours randomly opening cabinets trying to find a roach, yes I am that AH HA Gotchya kind of person, did not find any)
12:30 pm husband calls to tell me the woman he was suppose to meet and do a trade with didn’t show and pretty much cost him his lunch break, we hang up and I remember I need to cry to him so
1:00 pm call my husband and cry about how I can’t live with roaches, how I am not going to cook in that kitchen, and I want ORKIN
1:15 pm Call Orkin, schedule someone to come between 4-6pm that day…that’s better although the Orkin lady telling me every little thing about roaches, how they are treated, so on and so forth, no bueno people I was then relaly freaked out, so I spent the rest of the time until it was time to pick up the munchkins sitting on my door stoop
3:15 pick up munchkins, A is STARVING, take him to 7-11 for a hot dog
4:00 pm attempt to finally pay my bills and manage my bank account while impatiently waiting for Orkin to show up
4:15 pm knock on door(now people this was actually the good part of the day) Orkin GUY YAY! Bonus: It was the same Orkin guy from my last house
he inspects my house while I follow him around asking if he sees anything and pretty much tells me if I hire them I am wasting my money because I do not have a roach infestation, and I probably seen a baby “water bug” which was probably ran out of the sewer when they sprayed the other apartments
Still Skeptical
He goes out to the truck comes back in and starts spraying the hell out of my cabinets (keep in mind I am still standing behind him)
He looks at me and says “See?” Uhh no see what? “That was roach tear gas, if you had them they would have came running out”

WTF? You mean to tell me you were so confident I didn’t have them you were willing to bet my life on it, because let me tell you, had a bunch of roaches came running out I would have had a heart attack and died on the spot, right there on the kitchen floor surrounded by roaches and the Orkin man…what a tragedy that would have been.

Then to make me feel better he put some place and a little bait and told me I still wasn’t going to catch anything except maybe the American Roach (aka water bug) but that it couldn’t hurt because it would kill them too
Then he says oops I forgot this, and left me the bait

I am thinking the Orkin guy knew I was a spazz guys, and he was my hero, okay he is and probably always will be my hero

I’m not stupid though, pest control is coming Friday, those big fuckers are not welcome here either, nor are spiders, or any other freaking bug

5:15 pm Run out pick up munchkins prescriptions

5:30 pm Arby’s for dinner, because yea I am not friggin cooking

6:00 pm go to meet some lady for another trade: WAIT WAIT WAIT, TEXT NOTHING, WAIT fuck it, go into the store to do my shopping

6:40 pm Get a text from said lady I was suppose to meet
Her: Are you still here?
Me: Yea I am in the store
Her: Okay I will wait a few minutes sorry my phone was dead and I forgot what kind of car your drive
Me: I can send my husband out with my phone and he can tell you where we are parked
Her: Ok

6:55pm See my husband back in store…with the stuff we are suppose to be giving her, Uh whats going on?

Apparently she decided to run in and get bread after I said I was sending my husband out, so husband had to find her in the bread section

7:00 pm Realize I am missing The Originals and freak out, shit that was the only thing I was looking forward to

7:45 pm pick up something from a friend

8:00 pm (15 minutes after 1 munchkins bed time and an hour before the others) get home

8:15 pm start A on his home work, get C ready for bed

8:20 pm Put C to bed

8:25 pm help A with homework, get frustrated, hand homework help off to daddy

These were super fun to make and I loved that it was something different than your normal pumpkin, spider, bat, ghost, witch project 🙂

What you need:
Styrofoam cups
Paint(we used acrylic)
pipe cleaners
Googly eyes(optional, you could also use paint)
Glue
embellishments(optional)

What to do:
Paint your cup however you want your critter to look
Allow to dry
Paint your mouth and nose on if your critter is going to have one
Glue or paint on eyes
Stick pipe cleaners through the foam cups where you want the legs to be
Embellish your critter(optional)
We used pipe cleaners as hat edges, tails, and ears, we added gem stickers on some, you can make it as simple or as complicated as you like

So here comes the honesty, or at least as much honesty as I can possibly put on here. You see that’s the problem and probably why I lost a lot of my blogging inspiration, I can’t always be honest, well let me rephrase: the things I do post here are honest, the stuff I can’t be honest about just never makes it on the page, which in general just defeats the purpose of the page, doesn’t it? I mean I wanted a place where I could write about my emotions, share my feelings and share some real life including the stuff that is not rainbows and unicorns. It’s not working though. You see I have a bunch of family and friends and then of course there is my husband who reads my blog, and if I posted my feelings sometimes I’d probably be in a world of shit, or I would at least have a migraine from listening to someone whine about me having the nerve to write whatever it is I shared on MY blog. So now when I sit down and write a post I have to ask: Who will read this post? Will that person be offended by it? and quite honestly the answer is yes far too many times, because people can be babies and they tend to upset easily so instead I walk on eggshells and I scrap half the posts I write before I ever publish them. I should have made this blog anonymous, but at the time I created it I wanted my friends and family to be able to see it, and sometimes I still do, there are just times when I wish certain people wouldn’t read it at certain times. And that doesn’t mean all the posts I scrapped were mean or anything, some are just about belief systems or views on touchy subjects, or there was that one time when I wrote that post about the main reasoning I started a serious relationship with the husband was because he was good in bed, I gotta say I was a little nervous I would end up with a comment from my in-laws, thankfully if they read it they just ignored it, but that isn’t always the case, and if it’s ignored then you have to sit and wonder if they did read it, and what they thought, and it makes the whole blogging process become headachy(yes spell check I am aware it is not a word, but it should be) I don’t know, just some honest rambling from me….the not so rainbow and unicorn me!

Who’s ready for another ghost craft? I promise the next one will not involve ghosts lol, but this one is so fun and you don’t need a lot to make it so I wanted to share.

What you need:
Rectangle White Foam paper(you will want it to be a larger piece)
Black Marker
Glue(we used glue sticks)
Trash Bags(white)
Something to hang it up by(we used pipe cleaners, you could also use yarn, string ect)

What to do:
1. Cut trash bags into long strips(they do not have to be even)

2. Apply glue along the bottom edge of the foam paper

3. Stick the pieces of trash bag to the glue so they are hanging down length wise

4.Draw a ghost face in the center of your white foam paper

5. Fold the foam paper and glue the 2 edges together(to form a sphere)

6. Add a hanger(we used pipe cleaners and put holes in the sides to attach it)

The other night was particularly rough for us as far as my son and schooling went,, we basically found out that he is failing one class pretty badly, he admitted to not paying attention and he has been overly talkative. A is one of those kids that loves to be the class clown, making other people laugh makes him happy no matter how or where he does it, which tends to cause some issues in school. As far as focus goes people like to lay the blame on his ADHD and they are probably right, but they also like to blame his inability to remember things on his ADHD, and that can’t be the case. Do you know how I know? Because he has no problem remembering things he wants to remember! At any rate we decided to finally take away the video games and tablet until he choose to do better at school. My sweet boy sat at the kitchen table for at least 2 hours, snot dripping out of his nose, drool hanging off his mouth bawling like his dog had just died, I kid you not, my husband actually told me he thought maybe we should hide his shoe laces, he was so depressed, and all over video games…so as I tried not to lose my fucking mind, which was a pretty big challenge after the first hour went by with no sign of stopping, I started thinking a LOT. I was thinking about what is different in society, or in life in general now than 25-30 years ago, Why are children struggling more often in school, and with life in general and ya know what I realized?

We are pretty much the 1st generation of gamers raising children!

Which lead me to more thinking about all of the things that have changed in the last 25-30 years.
People as a whole are a lot less healthy
Marriages seem to have more problems, Divorce rates are up
Children tend to focus less on studies and playing outside has become almost obsolete
Mental health diagnosis and the amount of people on prescription drugs has skyrocketed

and that’s just the tip of the iceberg!

I know gamers are hating right now, They are shouting at their screens that video games and electronics are not the issue. I get it I used to be a gamer and I am certainly addicted to my computer, but hear me out folks.

How many times did you come home to find your mother on facebook or pinterest and your father playing World of Warcraft or Call of Duty? I know I didn’t ever. How many of you called your mother a bitch or your father an asshole to their face? How many of you were not at all nervous when the school called your parents? Let me tell you, if I fucked up and the school said they were calling my mom, I begged them to change their mind, I once got the bi part of bitch out to my mother before I had a bloody mouth, and I wouldn’t even have thought to say anything disrespectful to my father as a child, and let me be clear by saying my father spanked me twice in my entire life, so he was by no means abusive, he was just scary because he was my dad and I was made to listen, it only took twice to put the fear of god into me, but that’s another story for another time. At any rate, is it so crazy to correlate some of the behaviors of our children to the lack of parenting by adults, and to correlate the lack of parenting with the increase of electronic use?

You have to look at the facts and while I am not speaking of every man, woman and child out there because there is always exceptions I am speaking of the majority, I am speaking of what I see in my home, in my friends and families homes and all over the internet.

More and more children are focusing less on an education, less on being active, less on sports and more on video games, tablets, computers and cell phones.
Seriously I have seen 7 year old’s with cell phones…that to me is absurd!

More and more men focus so much on electronics that they forget they even have a family ( In my house we call this tunnel vision because unless a piece of the debris falls in his lap the whole house could explode and he’d never even know it while he is playing a video game)
And seriously how many know the feeling of being horribly aggravated because you are doing everything, your husband walks in the door walks to the game system and starts playing as if nothing else exists?

More and more women are spending their days on facebook and pinterest, rather than keeping their houses clean, and spending quality time with their children. How many parents go days without having a conversation with their kids while they are doing absolutely nothing else?
Do you know how many times I see status’ on facebook from women claiming it is sooooo HARD to keep their house clean, or find time to play with their children, or cook a meal for their husbands, Let me let you in on a little secret it is not hard, you just have to put down the keyboard.

We live in a world of internet, computers, game consoles, smart phones and tablets, and I have to say I think it is ruining the modern day family.

Do you know that as of 2011 15% of divorces cited video games as the reasoning? Seriously? I believe it because I can’t count the number of women I see or hear every day talking about how all their husband does is play video games or watch TV…

Do you also know that children who come from a divorced home are more likely to get a divorce themselves, and that children of parents who play video games are more likely to also play them, so how many divorces will now be indirectly caused by video games?

Do you know how many times I see someone complaining of being broke then buying the latest game to come out or people getting government assistance while carrying around an I-phone, or people begging for food for their children on a computer they own with internet they pay for?

Yet we still can’t believe that maybe just maybe electronic technology could be a large part of the problems today?

I know I know but technology makes life easier, you can:
Get ideas online
Pay your bills online
Use your phone to deposit a check
Call someone if you a broke down
Shop without leaving your house
Listen to music anywhere anytime
Record your favorite shows to watch later

or It’s FUN, it relieves stress…but does it relieve stress or could it secretly be causing yours?

If you ask me I think they may just be degrading the quality of life. So many people have lost perspective on what is and what is not important! How many times do you see someone answer one of those quiz questions that asks something like “What 5 things could you not live without” with things like: my cell phone, my tablet, my video games, my TV, my makeup, sunglasses…and other things like that? Ya know what you can’t live without? Food and water? You know what would make the quality of your life less? lack of friends, family, love, integrity, honor, a bed to sleep in and other things like that, but those are never the answers given. WHY?

Because too many people these days have lost track of what is truly important, and have become reliant on a game system or a computer, or a phone for happiness, The problem is they aren’t creating happiness, they are creating distant family units who lack quality time. If they created happiness then depression would not be on the rise. Think about it!
What’s your take on it?

What to do:
Remove the lid from the mason jar
Paint the outside of your mason jar white and let dry
Once it is dry use black paint or a permanent marker to draw a face on (As you can see one of my munchkins wanted their ghost to be a dog)
Put the flame-less candle or lights into your jar and enjoy